


Redemption

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Series: Ten Facts About . . . [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten flashes into the lives of four people, in a galaxy where Anakin Skywalker was redeemed within months of his fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anakin

He falls by stages to the Dark Side, from pride to fear to anger to hatred. After ten years of careful orchestration, his personality is broken and twisted almost beyond recognition. His Anakin-self, Anakin-that-was, becomes a distant memory, surviving only in the battered, tenuous attachments to the people Anakin loved. His wife, his unborn child, his mother’s memory; none of these keep him from evil, but in the end, they keep him from worse evil.

He doesn’t realize this until years later, when Vader is nothing more than a memory of madness; and he also realizes that the Emperor must have seen it from the beginning, and planned accordingly. Sith prize attachments about as highly as Jedi do.

* * *

When Vader sets a spy on his wife, it’s not because he doubts her; the spy may not know the child is his, almost nobody knows the child is his, but he does. He does it to protect her; it’s for her sake. Everything is for her sake.

* * *

Vader is busy enslaving himself to the Emperor when Padmé goes into labour, weeks earlier than expected; too early for anybody’s schemes to proceed smoothly. It is his spy who overhears the half-formed plan to hide the baby from Vader, when it’s born–his spy who steals Luke before Palpatine or Obi-Wan can get their hands on him, and his spy who overlooks the other child. 

Padmé, thank the stars, never knows.  She dies before Luke goes missing.

* * *

At the hospital, Vader’s rage blunts Anakin’s grief. 

“The child came early,” he says, very quietly. “Is that why she is dead?”

“No, my lord. She seems to have suffered a–a heart attack.”

“A heart attack,” repeats Vader, and from the morass of emotions he feels, one clearly emerges: bewilderment. “Is that customary for one of … Senator Amidala’s age?”

“Of course not!” The doctor feels a strange tightness in his throat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d been electrocuted.”

Vader’s golden eyes drop to Padmé’s corpse, settle on the face twisted in anguish. Force-lightning, he thinks distantly, and releases his own grip on the Force.

The doctor never knows how slender a thread his life hung upon.

* * *

After the years of falling, it takes him ten minutes to turn back: the same ten minutes it takes him to return from the hospital. His anger is subsumed in terror: Padmé is dead, just like Shmi, and not an hour ago he left Luke at the imperial palace–it’s his fault, all of it. He knows he can’t defeat Palpatine; he’s stronger, yes–stronger than everybody–but he doesn’t have his master’s experience, his knowledge. He couldn’t save Mother or Padmé and he can’t save Luke. Anything he does–

A whisper in the Force brushes past his mind, and for the first time in months (years?), he listens. It says:

_Palpatine has never been a Jedi._  
  
Never been a Jedi. He repeats the thought stupidly, before realization crashes in on him. Palpatine has never been a Jedi. He’s never trained in the Light Side, never studied it, never known it–

Calm settles around him, like a comforting blanket, and Anakin’s eyes fly open, wide and blue. It’s his only chance.

* * *

He is still calm when Palpatine’s body falls at his feet. So this is the end of the Sith: an old man and a young father. It seems fitting, somehow.

* * *

Anakin knows that the Emperor possessed every last shred of data about the Sith, every possible way to follow that path. Now the information exists only in two places: Anakin’s head, and the Emperor’s library.

Cradling his son in his arms, he delivers Darth Vader’s last command: evacuate the palace.

Then he lights it on fire.

After that day, he never again touches the Dark Side. He doesn’t dare, not with Luke depending on him, looking up to him, and really, he doesn’t much want to. He knows, better than any of the masters harping on old dogma, that it controls you, twists you until you aren’t yourself, until your own mother doesn’t recognize you; that it’s as much madness as evil. 

A madness freely chosen, however, so he does not allow this to assuage his conscience.

* * *

Anakin quietly raises his son on obscure Outer Rim planets. They even spend a few years on Tatooine, not far from Shmi Skywalker’s grave. 

Luke doesn’t mind; he’s inherited more from him than midichlorians, and they’re happy to wander the stars together. Besides, Anakin is determined to train Luke himself, away from the weight of their name, away from the restored Republic, away from those who would rip them apart and warn his son against _attachment_.

“Father, Father!” cries Luke, waving a hydrospanner. “I did it just like you told me and he started talking again! Can we go now?”

Anakin examines the child’s handiwork and smiles. He does not pretend that he is a good man, not after everything he’s done–but perhaps he is a good father.


	2. Luke

Luke doesn’t miss his mother.

He can’t remember her, of course. She died just after he was born, so he never even saw her. He’s looked at holos, but those are of the Queen of Naboo or Senator Amidala. They’re not Mother. If he’d known her for real, known Padmé-as-Mother the way he knows Anakin-as-Father, he would care.  He would.

Except, if it were the other way around–Luke’s thoughts shiver to a halt. Father is everything: father, mother, protector, instructor, master. He can hardly bear to think of the galaxy without him; he half-believes it would just crumble apart without Anakin Skywalker to order everything properly. If it were Father he couldn’t remember, would it be like this?

_No._ The thought settles into his mind with absolute conviction. Even if Luke didn’t know his father, he’d still matter. He’d still be Father.  

Luke is sure of it.

* * *

Luke knows all about the Dark Side. He knows that it’s easier, and that makes it seem more powerful. He knows there are some things it can do that the Light Side just can’t. And he knows that it breaks people apart and puts them together wrong. Once they give in, they’re never the same–just crazed clones of themselves, without any of the bits that made them who they were. They might as well be dead, because they never come back.

Except Father, the one who tells him all this, and one thing more: that he lost himself to it, ages and ages ago. For a little while, he was nothing more than a slave of the Dark Side. He did things too horrible to even talk about and didn’t care. He didn’t care about good or evil or anything except–well, not himself, but the not-Anakin he’d become. If he hadn’t come back, he would have kept doing those unspeakably horrible things and kept not caring about them. He’d have been lost forever.

Luke knows, too, what his father hasn’t told him. He knows what Father did. 

He can’t help it. He’s glimpsed too much of Father’s mind, heard too many of his nightmares, not to know. He’s seen him slaughtering his friends, and old men and women, and–and children. Not just children like Luke, either. Little ones, babies. Father loves children and he did that.

He’ll never tell Father what he’s seen him do. And he will never, never touch the Dark Side.

* * *

Luke loves flying, and fixing things, and the Force.

He doesn’t much like haggling or waiting or meditation.  Those are _boring.  _

“I’m going to be just like you when I grow up,” he informs his father, not for the first time. 

“Mm.” Father usually looks faintly terrified at the idea, but at the moment he’s busy trying to fly and repair a minor glitch at the same time. “I have an idea,” he says suddenly. “Bring me my lightsaber.”

Luke, dropping it reverently into his free hand, hears a surge in the Force accompany the sizzle-hiss of the lightsaber and, after a moment, a laugh of triumph. He doesn’t know what Father’s doing, but he’s sure that it’s awesome.

Luke considers his father’s messy blond hair and wide grin and brilliant presence in the Force, and thinks maybe he won’t have to wait until he grows up. 

* * *

Secretly, Luke wants to be a Jedi.

Every once in a while, he even catches a glimpse of one. Then, of course, they always have to run away. Luke doesn’t mind leaving their latest house–ships are always more home than houses anyway–but sometimes he wishes he could talk to one of them. Father’s terrified of them and he’s not afraid of anything, so they must be dangerous, but to Luke they mostly just look tired. Tired and nice.

He sees them more often as he gets older. Father’s lessons about the Force get quicker and more urgent, which Luke wouldn’t mind–they’ve always been too slow–if Father didn’t seem so miserable and worried.

Just before Luke’s birthday, they leave again. Luke can tell something’s different this time; Father is white and shaking, and he just looks at the ship’s control. Then he punches something into the navicomputer.

“Where are we going?” says Luke, trying to sound cheerful.

“Coruscant. I think you’ll like it there.”

_“What?”_

Father summons up a dreadful smile. “You’re going to be a Jedi.”

* * *

Luke likes the Jedi Temple.

He’d thought it would be like how he–how Father remembers it. But there are no fires or dead bodies or anything. It’s just quiet and calm and pretty–almost as good as a starship. He might even be happy, if ten or twelve grown-up Jedi hadn’t shown up and taken Father’s lightsaber and marched them through the halls. 

Everybody stares and whispers as they pass, not just the children. Luke clings to his father’s hand until the Jedi take them to another room, practically tossing them through the door. 

Father stumbles and Luke, catching a glimpse of much more powerful Jedi sitting around a table, falls down. He’s too frightened to even care that Father picks him up like a baby, and doesn’t set him down again. Luke buries his face in his father’s shoulder, and tries not to cry.

“Masters, the traitor Skywalker appeared several minutes ago to turn himself over to our justice,” says one of the Jedi behind them. “He claims the child is his … son.”

He says the word as if it were something dirty. Luke’s head jerks up so swiftly that he bumps Father’s jaw. 

“Don’t you dare call my father names,” he says angrily.

The Jedi only stares, but Father says, _“Luke.”_

“Sorry,” he mutters.

The important Jedi dismiss the other ones, and do nothing for a moment. Finally, one of them says in a squeaky voice,

“A merry chase you have led us, young Skywalker.”

Luke twists his head around and stares at the speaker. He looks like a very wrinkly little green troll, but he feels like–well, almost like Father.

“Merry is not the word I would choose, Master Yoda,” says Father respectfully. His arms tighten about Luke.

One of the masters, a younger human, stares at them. He doesn’t seem to know whether he should be more confused or angry.

The troll–Yoda–makes a noise Luke doesn’t understand. “Betrayed the Order, you did–murdered many. A shadow of ourselves, we now are. At the very least, an explanation you owe us.”

“An explanation?” Father’s laugh is much higher than usual. “I turned to the Dark Side. I–”

“Apprehended that much, we had.”

Father stares.

“A surprise nothing could be, once fallen you were. Betrayal, murder–the way of the Sith these are. Even the murder of the Emperor was not a surprise.”

“I did not murder _him_,” Father says sharply. 

Several sets of eyes narrow in his direction, but nobody speaks. Luke shivers.

“Expected you to declare yourself Emperor, we did–for the reign of Darth Vader to be one of even more terror and injustice than that of Darth Sidious. Destroying the Empire and the Sith and hiding with this child, we did not expect. Turning from the Dark Side we certainly did not expect. Impossible, it should be!”

“Oh,” says Father. “That.”

* * *

Luke feels sorry for the other children.

They scarcely ever leave the Temple, let alone Coruscant; they’ve never seen the stars. They don’t have families. And Father didn’t kill the families, either; their parents are alive, mostly, they just don’t know them. They’re not allowed to see them or even talk about them, and they don’t seem to much care. For them, the Temple is everything.

It’s not that Luke doesn’t like the Temple. Even as much as he misses his father, he loves it. But he’s glad he had years with Father first, that he saw Dantooine and Bakura and Ryloth and even Tatooine, though they both hated it there.

And worst of all, the others can hardly touch the Force. It’s not that they don’t have the power, they just don't know anything. They can’t meditate even as well–that is, as badly–as Luke does.

_Father, do I still have to? None of the others do and I’m not a padawan yet, so–_

_Yes_, says Father immediately.

Luke grins.

* * *

Master Yoda is Luke’s favourite teacher.

Almost all the masters teach them at some point or another, but they’re not half as good as Father. Father made things interesting, and never looked at him as if he might start chopping up his classmates at any moment. Not that there’d been classmates, but still. Father wasn’t afraid.

Master Yoda isn’t afraid either. He doesn’t peer suspiciously at Luke, and he doesn’t ignore him. He doesn’t try to pretend that Luke has been raised in the Temple, but he doesn’t treat him like a new alien species either. He just teaches them all, Luke included.

It helps that he’s the one who decided Luke would be allowed to see his father. Not often, because the Penance usually keeps Father from Coruscant, but when he’s there to report on his latest mission, Master Yoda sends a padawan to fetch Luke and they’re together for a few hours.

“Repeat the mistakes of the past, we must not,” he tells the others, when they look as if they might lecture Luke about attachments again. “Not with this one _or_ his father.”

Luke doesn’t know what that means, exactly, but it always seems to silence the Council.

* * *

Master Kenobi would be Luke’s favourite teacher if he weren’t so strange.

The Temple has given him an entire new measure of ‘strange,’ but Master Kenobi–ordinary, blue-eyed, human Master Kenobi–hits the far end of it. 

He’s the only one who seems to pay much attention to Luke in the beginning, when everybody is busy gaping at Father. He makes sure Luke is settling in properly. When Luke loses his temper–less often than the others, but even he does sometimes–Master Kenobi is the only one who asks to hear his side of the story. And even now, he’ll take him aside and ask about his studies, or his hobbies, or if there’s anything he’d like to do when he’s a proper Jedi. 

“Save the galaxy,” says Luke flippantly.

Master Kenobi smiles. “I think you already have.”

He’s always saying things like that. Master Yoda is positively comprehensible next to Master Kenobi.

Sometimes he’ll just tell Luke stories about the old days, when there were hundreds of Jedi instead of a few dozen. Hardly anybody ever talks about that, and certainly not about what Father was like before. He even talks about Luke’s mother, the senator-queen, and her friends in the Senate, and their children, looking utterly miserable–almost guilty–all the while. Luke keeps wondering if he’s going to be tested on them later on. He hopes not; he only really remembers Chancellor Mothma and Senator Bel Iblis, because they’re interesting, and the Organas, because Master Kenobi talks about them all the time.

The others insist that he is “Kenobi’s pet” (which he considers an acceptable improvement over “Sithspawn”), so apparently all this means that Master Kenobi likes him. Sometimes Luke can even feel it in the Force, a paler version of what he senses from Father. But he feels something else, too.

Fear.

* * *

Luke is almost twelve years old when the Council summons his father home to Coruscant. This is slightly odd, since they usually just wait for him to return–except for Master Kenobi, the masters don’t talk to him more than they have to–but not so much that Luke thinks anything of it.

This time, the padawan sent to fetch him is only a little older than Luke, much too young to remember the Empire. He’s properly horrified by Order 66, of course, but as far as he’s concerned, Anakin Skywalker is the Jedi who took on the Dark Side and won.

“It must be something to be the Chosen One’s kid,” he says chattily.

“Yes.”

“I’ve read all about him, of course, but I never thought I'd meet him. Is he as powerful as they say?”

“Yes.”

“And he really killed the Emperor and blew up the imperial palace?”

“Yes.”

“You know, there’s something I’ve always wondered.” The padawan–Fant? Feen? Something with an F, anyway–turns up a long hall. “What’s the whole 'Son of Suns’ thing about? I mean, it can’t be literal, everyone knows he doesn’t have a father and it’s not like anyone can seriously–”

“He was born in a system with two stars.”

The padawan looks disappointed. “That’s it?”

“Tatooine,” Luke says helpfully.

“Tatooine? But isn’t that just some Outer Rim desert planet?”

“Yes.”

Father is there when they arrive. The padawan, looking as if life could supply no greater honour, bows reverentially in his direction and runs away, leaving Luke to give an apologetic shrug.

_Have you got a new ship?_ he asks, since the masters are still settling into their seats. _I can tell–_

_No. I have only made some improvements. Perhaps, when you–_

“Initiate Skywalker,” Master Lanta announces, fixing her eye-stalks on him, “you are present on this momentous occasion in deference to the advice of Master Kenobi. He assures us that you may be trusted to comport yourself with appropriate decorum. I hope his regard is not undeserved.”

“Uh,” says Luke. “Yes? I mean, no.”

_What is she talking about?_

_I do not know._ Father’s brow furrows. _I was not informed of any ceremony._

“Excellent." 

Master Yoda clears his voice. "Anakin Skywalker. Considered your case long, we have: both faithful service, and evil committed.”

Father looks every bit as bewildered as Luke feels.

“The belief of this Council is, that no longer a servant of the Dark Side, are you.”

_They've **just now **figured that out?!_

_Hush_, says Father, and adds aloud, “Thank you. I am, as always, indebted to your forbearance." 

"A danger it will always be to you,” Master Yoda tells him sternly, “but no less in ten years, or twenty, than now.”

Father draws his breath with an audible whoosh. “I … do not understand.”

“Trained as a Jedi, you are. Passed that training onto your son, you did; very well-taught, he is, and untouched by the Dark Side.” Luke flushes. “And now, doing the work of a Jedi, you are.”

“I am paying for my crimes, Master Yoda.”

Master Kenobi laughs, and for the first time, Luke doesn’t sense any fear or guilt or anger from him. “I did warn you,” he tells the other masters, and looks at Father fondly. “I’m afraid, Anakin, that you are hardly in a position to reject the Council’s judgment–whatever it may be.”

Master Yoda points his cane at Father. “One crime. Turned to the Dark Side, you did.”

“No, I–”

“Question the wisdom of the Council, do you? _Again?_”

Father seems suddenly fascinated by his boots. “No, Master. Forgive me.”

“One crime, we have said. A terrible crime, worst that a Jedi can commit. But renounced it, you have, many years past, and penance you have paid. Therefore–” Luke can almost feel the Force crouching in anticipation– “the will of the Council it is, that reinstated as a Jedi you shall be.”

_“What?”_

“On a probationary basis,” Master Kenobi adds. “If you take up Force-choking your subordinates again, I’m afraid we will have to take drastic measures. And murder is absolutely out.”

An hour later, Luke leaves a dazed Anakin Skywalker to the Council’s tender mercies and beams at the still-nameless padawan. “I’m going to be a Jedi,” he says brightly, _“just like my father.”_

“Well,” says the padawan, “it’s about time.”

* * *

At first, Luke doesn’t think he’ll have any trouble finding a master. In fact, it seems like half the Temple volunteers for the job. He doesn’t even recognize most of them, so he asks his father to be his master instead.

“I am fairly certain there is a law against that,” says Anakin.  “Somewhere.”

Then he asks Master Yoda, because if there’s anything he doesn’t know, it’s not worth knowing.

“Almost nine hundred years old I am,” Yoda says, scowling up at him. “Taking padawans I most definitely am not." 

Luke asks Master Lanta next. 

"No,” she says.

He sighs, and she waves her stalks, seeming to take pity on him.

“If you wish to be trained by a Jedi Master, you should make enquires of Master Kenobi. He performed adequately with Jedi Skywalker, if your early instruction by him is considered.”

“Thank you,” Luke replies dispiritedly. He asks two of his other teachers, a healer and an ambassador respectively, before finally giving in.

“You wish to be my padawan,” Master Kenobi says, staring at him. “You are aware that I have not taught anyone since Anakin?”

He shrugs. “Father turned out all right.”

Master Kenobi chokes on his tea.

“Eventually. I asked a few others first,” Luke adds honestly. “They were all too old or too busy or too scared, and Master Lanta said I could ask you. And–I don’t really want the people who offered. They can’t tell me apart from my father.”

“Oh?”

“It’s hard to explain. Sometimes people make it seem like I’m–Anakin Skywalker, version two. You know, all the midichlorians of the first one and none of the bugs. Not Luke at all." 

Master Kenobi flinches.

"And nobody seems to realize that I'm not the Chosen One. I’m just his son.” Luke glances up and smiles. “Well, I didn’t want that.”

“Quite understandable.”

“I could tell that you were afraid I’d be just like him,” Luke says suddenly. “But you bothered to find out. You asked questions. You talked to me. Maybe I didn’t understand, but I was just a kid. I do now. You couldn’t forget that I was his son.”

“Luke–”

“No, it’s fine.” Luke beams. “I don’t ever forget either. I know that I’m a lot like him, and I–well, I enjoy being his son. I just don’t want to be his clone. And you probably know me and Father better than anybody who’s still alive.”

Master Kenobi takes a deep breath, staring at something outside the window. Then he turns back, looking wise and kind and not at all strange. “Luke Skywalker,” he says, smiling down at him, “I would be honoured to accept you as my padawan.”


	3. Leia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take an extremely casual approach to Star Wars canon in this series, and particularly this segment.

Bail Organa is Leia’s father.

Oh, she knows he’s not her natural father. That much is public knowledge, and he has never made the slightest attempt to conceal it from her. It simply doesn’t matter. He has brought her up as his daughter–supported her, educated her, loved her. In every way that counts, he is her father.

But the Queen of Alderaan was not Leia’s mother. Perhaps it would be different if she could remember her, if she had seen the queen in something other than royal portraits or Father’s treasured holos, but she doesn’t and she hasn’t. Instead Leia remembers a different woman, solemn and beautiful, with a kind smile and her own dark eyes and pale oval face.

The lady always seemed impossibly splendid at first. Then she would hold out her arms, her face lighting up when Leia ran to her, and clutch the princess’ small body to her for a moment. After she and Father discussed Important Senate Business, she would take Leia out into the garden and talk to her–not in the silly way that most grown-ups talked to children, either, but seriously. It always seemed as if she wanted nothing more than to hear about Leia’s day and Leia’s life and Leia’s childish victories and grievances.

Perhaps she didn’t.

Then she would vanish, returning after a few months with sadder eyes and fewer smiles (and a bigger belly, but even then, Leia knew better than to mention that). She doted upon Leia with an increasingly desperate adoration, and then one day she left and didn’t come back.

Father must have explained that she died, but Leia doesn’t remember it. She doesn’t remember anything, except being afraid, and feeling that everyone else was afraid too, and missing the lady.

_Mother_, she thinks now, and wishes she knew her name.

* * *

Leia was five years old when she saw the Empire die.

She was in the schoolroom, too frightened to concentrate on her lesson and covering the fear with impatience, as always. Her tutor scolded her–she stuck out her lower lip, glaring out the window–and the palace lit on fire.

There was more than that, of course: the first nervous queries after the Emperor and Lord Vader, the early days when the Senate rushed to take up the reins of government (again), her father’s role as chief architect of the restored Republic and, briefly, Supreme Chancellor. The Empire fell into the Republic just as the Republic did into the Empire, shepherded by almost two thousand anxious senators in the place of one raving megalomaniac.

For Leia, however, the Empire died in one bright explosion. The rest was just cleaning up. **  
**

* * *

Obi-Wan Kenobi is the only Jedi Leia knows.

Oh, she knows about them, of course. Everybody does, and all the more so now, when there are so few of them. Yet for all their increased stature, they have even less to do with the galaxy than they once did. If General Kenobi weren’t the liaison between the Jedi Order and the Republic, and a particular friend of her father’s, she probably wouldn’t know him either.

Still, Leia likes him. He is always very kind to her, and he tells her things, interesting things. She just wishes he didn’t seem so guilty about it.**  
**

* * *

Leia is nine years old when she first hears the name _Skywalker._

She gets a decided feeling that neither General Kenobi, who came to Alderaan in person to talk about whoever-it-is, nor Father, who spits the name out like it tastes bad, meant her to hear it. But it’s not eavesdropping when they know she’s there, and if they’re going to be so obviously secretive they should expect her to pay attention.

Leia stares at her book but listens avidly, forcing herself to turn the pages at appropriate moments.

“–confirmed sighting,” General Kenobi is saying.

“Confirmed?” echoes Father. “Then it’s certain?”

“As certain as it can be, with him. Jedi Vuthren saw a young man answering the description, accompanied by a small boy.”

“He has the child?”

“Undoubtedly. Although he fled before Vuthren had a chance to investigate, the team discovered used vaporators, several pieces of child’s clothing, and abundant signs of Force usage.”

Leia doesn’t understand much of this, but she understands that this man Skywalker has managed to confuse and frighten both General Kenobi, who’s a Jedi Master and a war hero, and her father, who isn’t afraid of anything. She supposes she ought to be afraid too, but–

Well, she just isn’t, even when she hears of more and more sightings. Apparently he has all the daring and ingenuity of a dozen HoloNet smuggler sidekicks, and none of the smuggling.

People see him but they never find him. He has the same mystical powers as the Jedi and flies a starship like nobody’s business. He pays bounty hunters to bring children to the Temple. And he’s always always two steps ahead of the Republic and the Jedi.

Leia isn’t afraid. She's impressed.

* * *

Leia shouldn’t be fascinated by Luke Skywalker.

Perhaps he’s got special powers and a life of nonstop adventure with his swashbuckling father–Leia suppresses a twinge of envy–but he’s still just a little boy. Four? Five? Much younger than she is, anyway, and not even a prince.

She doesn’t know what he looks like. She doesn’t know _what_ he’s like, just that he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son. Sometimes Father and Obi-Wan Kenobi talk about him, but she never catches much beyond “Luke” and “who can know” and “she would have–” She can’t even creep closer, because one or the other always glances at Leia as soon as the boy’s name is mentioned.

They look worried, she thinks, but also guilty. It’s one thing from General Kenobi–he always seems guilty about something–but not her father. He doesn’t keep secrets from her, not important ones, and he definitely doesn’t just change the subject when she asks questions.

Leia’s eyes narrow. They're keeping something from her, she just knows it. And she’s going to find out what it is.

* * *

Leia is disappointed when Anakin Skywalker turns himself in.

Ordinary criminals do that, of course, when they don’t have anywhere left to run. Embezzlers, thieves, other low sorts. Skywalker is anything but low. When it comes down to it, Leia has never even thought of him as a criminal. How could she? He’s a renegade Jedi who rescues war orphans. He’s practically a hero.

She has always imagined that the Republic and the Jedi would finally hunt him down. After a glorious battle, he would lose tragically against impossible odds. It would be more dramatic if he died, but they’d probably just drag him back to Coruscant in chains. And even then he’d spit in their faces, because he’s not some pathetic smuggler, but hero of the Clone Wars, Jedi rebel, space pirate. He's Anakin Skywalker.

But in reality, he doesn’t fight at all. He just gives himself up, handing his lightsaber and his son and his starship over to the Jedi, and–

_His son._ General Kenobi didn’t even try to lower his voice when he told them that Luke Skywalker was in the Temple now, that he was going to be trained as a Jedi.

A real hero would sacrifice himself for his son. Even if it meant a boring, embarrassingly bloodless surrender.

Leia smiles, relieved, and wonders if it would be terribly impolite to ask Skywalker for his autograph.

* * *

Leia’s idol is Senator Amidala of Naboo. She was a heroine, a martyr of the old Republic, a strong, intelligent woman, a loyal and principled senator. And she did amazing things with a blaster.

Someday, Leia promises herself, she’s going to be just like her, only with more practical clothes and less make-up.

By fifteen, that childish dream isn’t quite so distant as it once seemed. Leia is no longer just Viceroy-Senator Organa’s plucky daughter, but _Princess Leia of Alderaan_, one of the shining stars of the new generation. She’s already made her voice heard, and everybody believes that she’ll be a senator herself before she’s twenty-five.

So does Leia.

On the tenth anniversary of the Empire’s end, the viceroy summons her to his study.

“Yes, Father?” says Leia, her mind still at the targeting range. The problem is that the practice droids are too predictable. Real enemies wouldn’t–

Without preamble, he says, “I want to talk to you about your mother.”

All thoughts of blasters and droids flee her mind. Leia wets her lips. “My mother? You mean–”

“Your natural mother,” he amends. “Padmé.”

“Was that her name?” Leia asks, eyes widening. “I don’t remember.”

“You would be more familiar with her name, and costumes, of state.” He fiddles with the holoprojector, and a flickering image comes to life: Amidala, exquisitely coiffed and robed, her face painted in the then-current fashion of Naboo. Leia moves her lips, but no sound comes out.

“She was Padmé Naberrie Amidala,” he tells her, “Senator of Naboo, and a very dear friend.”

Leia stares at the hologram.

“I miss her,” she says.**  
**

* * *

When Leia is seventeen, she casually asks, “Did Mother ever marry?”

Senator Organa stumbles, wine sloshing inside his glass. “Of course she did,” he says, recovering himself with an easy smile. “She married me.”

Leia, however, is too quick not to see his alarm at the question. Her eyes narrow, but she contents herself with saying, “I meant Senator Amidala. I know she didn’t marry my–her lover, but she lived for five years after that. I couldn’t find anything in the public records.”

“Padmé was–” he pauses, then says carefully, “yes, she did. It was not an appropriate match for either of them, so the marriage was kept secret. Only a select few of us ever knew that it had happened; your mother and I, General Kenobi, the handmaidens, and of course Padmé and … her husband.”

“Is he still alive?” Leia asks, leaning forward eagerly. She is hungry for every scrap of information about her mother–she always has been, and the revelation of her identity has only whetted Leia’s appetite. “Do you know where he is? I am sure he could tell me about her.”

“No!”

She stares at him.

“They were only married about a year,” Organa says, calming his voice. “I doubt there is very much he could tell you.”

Leia’s grin is more than a little self-satisfied. “So he _is_ alive.”

She dredges up every holoreport which so much as mentions Amidala or Padmé Naberrie, hunts down every tabloid rumour, but there’s nothing. Whatever happened, Padmé’s friends–or enemies–covered it up well. Still, nothing could be that well concealed, least of all a secret marriage. There would be some sign, some hint, something.

Leia pores over the holos she’s managed to find. Padmé is almost always pictured with her friends in the Senate: Father, Mon Mothma, even on occasion the Emperor. _Palpatine and Amidala of the Naboo_, a caption reads, and Leia hastily shuts it down, her breath coming fast. She wouldn’t have–not Mother–

But no. It couldn’t have been anyone in the Senate; why would she have needed to hide that?

It was not an appropriate match, Father had said, distaste all but leaking out of his voice. He’s not a snob; if Padmé and her husband really loved each other, it would take more than political differences to provoke his disapproval. This man, whoever he was, must have been beyond the pale. A slave? Or perhaps he wasn’t human at all. If he were a non-humanoid sentient, like a–a Dug or a Hutt or–

_How would that even **work**?_

She firmly closes her mind on that thought, and returns to the holos. If Padmé ever so much as glanced at another lifeform, Leia will find it. Somehow. Eventually.

She yawns, leaning on her hand as she watches youthful versions of her father and Chancellor Mothma talking earnestly to a still younger Senator Amidala. Padmé’s omnipresent Jedi protectors trail after her, while minor dignitaries flit this way and that in the background.

_That’s why General Kenobi knows about it. He was always there, or that apprentice of his. Maybe I should just ask him the next time he comes._

Leia, gazing sleepily at the Jedi, almost stumbles across her epiphany.

She’s been assuming all along that the marriage was kept secret for Padmé’s sake alone, that the obstacles to the match were conquered by Padmé alone. But Father never said that. He said–she doesn’t remember exactly, but something like _the marriage was inappropriate for both of them._

_**Both **of them._

For whom could Padmé Amidala, one-time Queen of Naboo and then Galactic Senator, possibly be inappropriate? No, it was much more likely to have been some kind of inter-species … thing.

Leia glances back at Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice. They may be Jedi, but they’re much better-looking than–

_Jedi._

Jedi aren’t allowed to marry–not anyone, not ever. Padmé’s status would just make it _worse_.

“Oh, no,” Leia whispers aloud.

At the time, General Kenobi was what, thirty-five? He could have–but no, it’s impossible. Not Kenobi, who is quite possibly the most sexless creature Leia has ever encountered. Besides, Father mentioned him in addition to Padmé’s husband. Unless he was lying, it must be someone else.

Leia’s eyes fall to the apprentice, a tall, blond young man.

Almost a boy, really. He’s definitely younger than Amidala–very young and very handsome and very, very forbidden.

Within twenty-four hours, Leia has sent a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

_Forgive me, General_, she says, smiling apologetically. _I don’t mean to be an inconvenience, but I’m trying to find my stepfather–I need to ask him about my mother. It must sound ridiculous, but I’m almost certain he was a Jedi. I think he probably used to be your apprentice. I’ll understand, however, if there’s some code that prevents you from telling me his name. If that’s the case, please let me know and I’ll keep looking until I find him. Thank you very much. _**  
**

* * *

In the end, Leia does get Anakin Skywalker’s autograph.

General Kenobi responds to her holo-message with commendable haste. He doesn’t give her his wayward apprentice’s name, of course–she never thought he would. Still, her ploy is rewarded by his careful explanation that he cannot tell her anything without speaking to the man in question.

Pleased with her own ingenuity, Leia waits impatiently for further communications. She almost tumbles out of her chair when her handmaiden says that a Jedi wants to see her.

“Let him in,” mutters Leia, standing to face the window.

After a few moments, she hears the door open and shut.

“General Kenobi,” she says, smoothing her sleeve, “I–”

Her mouth drops open. The man before her is certainly a Jedi–at least he’s dressed like a Jedi–and he has a lightsaber. Did they give it back? How did he–

Leia snaps her mouth shut. “You must be Jedi … Skywalker.”

“You must be Padmé’s girl,” he returns, smiling a little.

“I’m Leia–” Naberrie, she feels a strange desire to say– “Organa, of Alderaan.”

“It is a pleasure, your Highness. I have been given to understand by my master–my former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi–that you wish to make certain enquiries of me.”

In his quiet, resonant voice, this statement somehow sounds perfectly normal.

“Yes, I–oh, please, sit down.” She gestures impatiently at a chair and he complies, his smile deepening. “I–I think you’re my stepfather?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he says agreeably.

Leia scowls. “You were married to Padmé Amidala, the senator for Naboo?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, she was my mother, so you are, manner or no manner.  Can you tell me about her?”

For a long moment, he simply looks at her. Then he says, “Yes. She would want–you have a right to know. Well, we knew each other for many years before our marriage. I was nine years old when we met. What do you wish to hear about?”

“Everything,” says Leia. “I can send for water, if you need it.”

At that, he laughs outright. “How very kind–and practical. You are certainly her daughter.”

“Did she tell you about me?”

“No.” He glances away. “I … likely would not have understood. I was very young, and by the time of our marriage, somewhat less than perfectly rational.”

“I can believe that,” Leia says, remembering the palace exploding before her eyes. The Republic discovered afterwards that nobody was actually inside. He just wanted to destroy it. “How long have you known, then?”

_Would you have ever told me anything, if I hadn’t come looking for you?_

A shadow flickers across his face and is instantly repressed. “Since yesterday,” he says, “when Obi-Wan deigned to inform me of your existence.”

Leia is satisfied. She listens to his stories of her mother with absorption bordering on reverence, committing every word to heart and meeting even Skywalker’s exacting ideas of what is due to his wife’s memory. He talks until his vocal cords all but revolt.

“You’re exactly what I always thought you were,” Leia informs him, and leaving him with no doubt but that this is an enormous compliment, holds out her datapad. “Would you mind autographing this? I’ve wanted to ask since I was a little girl.”

“The honour is mine,” croaks the Jedi, and signs his name, Anakin Skywalker, with all the flamboyance at his disposal.

Leia beams.


	4. Obi-Wan

Obi-Wan’s birth family dies in a speeder accident when he’s seven years old. By then, he’s been at the Temple for almost six years; he doesn’t know his parents or his brothers, he doesn’t remember anything about them. There is no connection, no bond.

He regrets their deaths. That is all.

It is an odd sort of comfort, to know that he has already passed that test. If he were one to succumb to the lure of attachments, surely he would feel sorrow at their deaths, the need to grieve for them. He doesn’t even feel that he is an orphan–

–until Qui-Gon falls beneath Darth Maul’s lightsaber. 

* * *

Obi-Wan knows that the other young Jedi struggle most with the injunction against passion. 

He knows, but he doesn't understand. He’s rarely felt more than boredom at the idea, and then only mild distaste. If they would simply regulate themselves–

Well. It is not the way of the Jedi, and nothing else matters.

(Sometimes, though, Obi-Wan has the sneaking suspicion that he’d be exactly the same if he weren’t a Jedi–at least about this.)

* * *

Obi-Wan never thinks of Anakin as his son.

Anakin is many things: a thorn in his side, a constant worry, a promising if exasperating padawan, the creation of the Force, the Son of Suns.  Above all else, however, he is the boy chosen by Qui-Gon, chosen as Obi-Wan himself was, years ago. He is Qui-Gon's other child, his younger son.

Qui-Gon would have known what to do with him, known how to teach him, known how to respond to his questions and quell his temper. He would have raised Anakin properly, he would have been a father, not a bewildered, grieving, ignorant older brother.

Obi-Wan cannot imagine himself as another Qui-Gon, so it never occurs to him that fatherless Anakin might do so. He doesn’t understand the boy’s desperate longing for a father, the hopes he first pinned on Qui-Gon and then neatly transferred to Obi-Wan. He certainly doesn’t understand that Anakin looks up to him, rebels against him, fights alongside him, and finally betrays him, as his son.

He can’t. For Obi-Wan, Anakin will always be his little brother.

* * *

Obi-Wan watches Palpatine’s–Sidious’–victory, and grieves.

He grieves for the Republic, weak and teeming with corruption though it may have been. He grieves for Mace Windu, for all his brother and sister Jedi. He grieves for the children, slain by one they looked up to.

Secretly, he grieves for Anakin, too: not the yellow-eyed monster that he has become, not Vader, but Anakin. The Dark Side has destroyed him as it destroys all within its grasp, filling the shell of Anakin’s body with itself. There can be no return from the Dark Side, Yoda tells him, no hope for one who has fallen, for there is nothing left to save from the wreckage.

Anakin is dead, and Obi-Wan grieves for what he was.

* * *

Obi-Wan hides with the Organas, concealed as a bodyguard of Senator Amidala’s. From a certain point of view, he is.

It’s not for her sake, however, fond of her though he may be. The child must be hidden, as soon as it’s born, taken beyond the reach of the Emperor, and of Vader, too. Neither will indulge in any sentimentality about another Jedi child.

Obi-Wan imagines that Anakin-shaped monstrosity slaying Anakin’s child, and shudders.

They have only formed the vaguest possible plan, however, when Padmé goes into labour. It’s too early, he thinks wildly. It’s too early. We’re not ready–

They haven’t even begun their preparations, let alone finalized them, and the child is already lying in the Queen of Alderaan’s arms, whimpering for his mother.

“Luke,” whispers Padmé, eyes drooping. Her skin is ashen and drawn tight across her face. “We … Anakin and I, we talked–”

“Luke Naberrie? It’s a good name,” Organa says quickly, nodding at the droid. It creaks over and increases the flow of sedatives and analgesics.

“No,” she says, turning her head towards the child. Another guard shifts his weight anxiously. “Skywalker. Luke … Skywalker. He’s Anakin’s heir, he has–”

It is neither the time nor the place to argue, yet Obi-Wan feels a deep sense of unease as he turns away, silently encouraging her to escape into sleep. Within days, Luke has disappeared, and so has the guard, a pleasant, nondescript man nobody paid the slightest attention to, except to commend him for his efficiency.

_A spy._

Obi-Wan feels sick. “Vader has the boy now.”

“He’s dead, then. How can I tell her–_what_ will I tell her?” Organa stares down at Padmé, her face calm and relaxed in sleep. At least her dreams bring her comfort, Obi-Wan thinks, and reaches out to the Force.

Other presences ripple back at him: fifty or sixty Jedi, too distant to pinpoint; perhaps a hundred padawans and younglings scattered across the galaxy; and a single bright flicker illuminating the twisting, spreading obscurity where Anakin should be.  

“No,” says Obi-Wan, his eyes flying open. “He’s not dead. Luke is with–” _his father_– “Vader, but he lives.”

“Why?”

“Luke is highly sensitive to the Force. Vader may intend to raise him as an–apprentice.” Something cold and hard settles in his gut. “He must not succeed. Luke is our last hope. I shall find him, and if it is possible, I will bring him back. Say nothing to Padmé.”

He spends the next three days searching for Vader. Enveloped as the Sith Lord is by the smothering tendrils of the Dark Side, Obi-Wan cannot simply track his presence in the Force, as he once would have done. He fumbles along, guided only by his dim sense of Luke, and unsure whether it is even possible to defeat the boy’s wayward father.

It doesn’t matter. The attempt must be made.

Before he can do much more than look, however, Organa summons him back to the medicenter. The queen is weeping, the droid deactivated, and the doctor speaking in a shrill, nervous voice.

“I already told Lord Vader–”

Organa lifts his head, revealing tired eyes and tear-stained cheeks. His mouth is set in hard, grim lines.

“Vader?” Obi-Wan repeats. He feels an abrupt certainty that something is wrong, terribly wrong–and somehow, that it is not Vader’s doing. “What is this about? Is Senator Amidala–” 

“Dead,” the doctor tells him, and adds helpfully, “heart attack. Electrocution.”

Obi-Wan’s breath hisses out between his teeth. “Sidious.”

“Funny,” says the doctor. “That’s what _he_ said.”

* * *

Obi-Wan is the first Jedi to return to the Temple. 

He waits only for the Senate to reassert its control over the government, rushing home the moment that Interim Chancellor Organa rescinds Order 66. It’s a mess, of course, though the bodies have been cleared away. He requisitions an army of cleaning droids within the hour.

Yoda joins him shortly thereafter.

“Optimistic, you are, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“I?” Obi-Wan doesn’t presume to disagree. “Perhaps I am. I see the Empire fallen, and a great deal of work to do.”

“Survived the fire, Darth Vader did,” observes Yoda.

Obi-Wan permits himself a short laugh. “Anakin _set_ the fire, no doubt from a safe distance. I’ve been told he ordered everyone out, all the way down to the droids. He’s not–I don’t know what happened, Master Yoda, but the Force … it feels different now.” 

“Balanced, it is.” Yoda hobbles away, boosting himself onto a window-sill. “Purified. For now.”

“Forever, I hope.”

“Think that Vader will not return, do you? Because turned on the Emperor, he did? Bah! The way of all Sith apprentices, it is.”

“You must have felt many Sith masters depart the galaxy by now,” Obi-Wan says, sending a broom sweeping across the floor. “Did their deaths balance the Force?”

“Hm!” says Yoda. “Missed a spot by the wall, you have.”

* * *

Obi-Wan is the first to receive news of Anakin–by way of a bounty hunter, of all things. 

It’s just after the Republic’s second Restoration Day when the bounty hunter presents himself at the Temple, refusing to speak to anyone other than Obi-Wan.

“Master Kenobi, you have dealings with beings of this ilk?” Master Lanta asks frostily.

“I know nothing of any of this,” Obi-Wan says, and it is no less than the truth. “Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding.”

“Sure,” drawls the bounty hunter, “happens all the time. Got to say, though, my client gave me a pretty good description, and you match it. _Exactly._”

“Well,” Obi-Wan says, “bring it here, and we’ll try to clear this up.”

“Sure thing.” His smile broadens as he turns on his com, ordering his–lieutenant? whatever he is–to bring the shipment to the courtyard. 

 Obi-Wan doesn’t know what he expects; something, perhaps, from one of the Jedi posted away from Coruscant–a discovery of some lost knowledge, a rare artefact, something–

The lieutenant, a tall male Twi'lek, turns into the courtyard. He carries nothing but a blaster at one hip and a toddler on the other. Children of varying ages and species trail behind him, their faces solemn and composed.

“It’s going to be fine,” a young Wookiee says in her own tongue. “He promised.”

Obi-Wan, on the point of asking if this is some kind of joke, pauses. The Wookiee feels … familiar. Out of habit more than anything, he reaches out with the Force–and nearly bites his tongue off. 

They’re Force-sensitives–the Wookiee most strongly, but all twelve to some degree. By the widening of her eyes, Lanta feels it as well.

_Who–?_

“We did not send for this _shipment_,” she says, one stalk twitching wildly.  “Who hired you?”

The bounty hunter scratches his chin. “Young fellow. Quiet, tall. Didn’t try to bargain. Light hair and blue eyes, both of them.”

“Both?” Obi-Wan says sharply.

“Yeah, him and the little boy. He sent the others on, but not that one–his own kid, I bet. Spitting image of him. The name was something odd. Starkiller? No, Skywalker. Yeah, that’s it. Anakin Skywalker. Here’s the message.”

He extends the datapad to Obi-Wan, who accepts it with steady hands.  
  
_Master,_

_Luke is safe, well, and happy. Do not attempt to take him from me. My former master thought to do so, shortly before his death, and discovered that even a monster’s love for his child is not easily perverted. I intend to instruct him in the tenets of our faith and the way of the Force, but I will not permit any separation between us, nor any harm to come to him._

_I presume the Order’s standards of acceptance are rather less rigorous than in my youth, given the present circumstances. There is no Qui-Gon to shelter these children, and as orphans they have even fewer alternatives than I did._

_Anakin_

* * *

Obi-Wan doesn’t understand why he looks forward to Anakin's shipments.

Oh, he’s fond of the children; he likes teaching them. And it comforts him to know that Qui-Gon would (probably) be proud of him. 

That’s all true enough, but it’s not the whole truth. It’s not even most of the truth.

The truth is that his anticipation isn’t for the children but for the messages. They’re pure Anakin: formal, brusque, and vacillating wildly between autocratic commands, urgent entreaties, and awestruck descriptions of his son. 

Even allowing for the prejudice of a doting father, the boy seems little short of a Force prodigy. He is also cheerful, healthy and articulate, if the accounts they receive from the children’s ludicrously inappropriate escorts can be trusted. Obi-Wan is pleased, relieved, grateful. For some reason he … cares for Luke, a boy he hasn’t seen since the Empire’s hellish last days, and then only for a few hours.

He doesn’t understand that, either.

* * *

Obi-Wan always swore he’d never take another padawan, even as he attempted to manage the one he had.

Anakin’s fall certainly did nothing to change his mind on the subject. 

Anakin's son does. 

Seven years after his father delivers him to the Temple, Luke Skywalker seats himself across from Obi-Wan and blinks owlishly at him.

Obi-Wan has taken an interest in the boy from the first: looked after his comfort, enquired after his aspirations and predilections, answered his questions, told him stories of his father and talked around the-subject-which-must-not-be-mentioned.

_They must not fail Luke as they failed Anakin. _

Obi-Wan isn’t foolish enough to ignore the uncanny resemblance between father and son, but he knows Luke isn’t Anakin. (He has the sneaking suspicion that nobody else does, only sometimes excluding Anakin and Luke themselves. But Obi-Wan remembers the truth.)

“Can I help you, Luke?”

“I want you to take me as your padawan,” Luke says, and fixes Anakin’s disconcertingly direct gaze on him. “Can you help me, Master Kenobi?”

(Usually.)

* * *

Almost from the moment he sets eyes on her, Obi-Wan knows that Leia Organa is Padmé’s daughter.

It is all very discreet, of course. Senator Amidala has always spent a great deal of time with Senator Organa and his family; they are known to be close personal friends as well as political allies. Leia naturally adores kind, glamorous “Aunt Padmé” and Padmé naturally returns the princess’ affection. Even Obi-Wan sees nothing to provoke suspicion.

And yet he knows. 

He and Bail keep the secret for over a decade. At first, it seems the only reasonable thing to do. Anakin might not be Vader any more, but he is still _Anakin_, wilder and more unpredictable than ever. If he discovers that his wife left a daughter–a daughter in whom her slight sensitivity to the Force is magnified tenfold–  

Later, after Anakin brings Luke to the Temple–well, it’s not Obi-Wan’s secret to tell. Bail is still staunchly opposed to telling anyone about anything; Leia doesn’t even know about Padmé yet. Yoda, likewise privy to the truth, regards Luke’s intense devotion to his father as quite dangerous enough without throwing a sister into the mix. 

At first, he bows to their authority with only a few flickers of regret. But when Anakin is reinstated into the Order, Obi-Wan’s remorse becomes bitter and constant, and by the time he accepts Luke as his padawan, the secret has become an almost unbearable burden. Leia is almost eighteen, Luke already thirteen; the childhood they ought to have shared is nearly gone.

When she sends a hologram all but demanding the name of her stepfather, Obi-Wan’s shoulders sag in relief.

Anakin is livid, of course, though his face remains blank and he says only “how, then, does she know about me?” and “when do we leave?” Luke seems torn between excitement and confusion. (“Master, why couldn’t you tell me I had a sister, again?”)

When Leia drags Anakin into her father’s study, Obi-Wan braces himself for all the rage and recrimination he deserves. For a moment, the princess _does_ look as if she wants to put a blaster to his head.  Then her eyes fall on Luke, fiddling with his braid, and her fury softens to bewilderment.

“This is my apprentice,” Obi-Wan says, “Luke Skywalker.”

Leia catches her breath. “Stars, I’m an idiot,” she says, and holds out her hand to her brother. “I mean, hello. I’m Leia Organa.” 

“Hi,” he says, then blushes. “I–I guess I’m your half-brother?”

“No, my _baby_ brother,” says Leia, grinning madly. “How embarrassed would you be if I hugged you right now?”

“Only a little,” says Luke.


End file.
